268 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Selandria parva, nigra, iiitida, tibiarum tarsorumque basi 

 alba, alis fusco-nigris, apice hyalinis. • 



A glance at our engraving will show that we have here to 

 do with an insect related to Selandria ajtbiops, Z., the well- 

 known caterpillar of the pear-tree ; indeed, Ratzeburg's 

 description of the one follows immediately upon that of the 

 other. In a systematic arrangement, however, they would 

 not be placed so near together; they are in the same genus 

 of Hartig, but, on account of the difference in the neuration 

 of the wings, not in the same division: this may suggest the 

 question whether the divisions of this author, according to 

 the neuration, are always equally natural, — a question which 

 I hope to answer, if 1 succeed in rearing a third species of 

 caterpillar (nut-brown, living on the oak). 



At the end of May, 1866, I took a female of Selandria 

 annulipes, on a lime-tree in my garden, after the insect had 

 been flying about for some time in the sunshine among the 

 large leaves of that tree. On the 8th of June following I 

 perceived some very small caterpillars on the under side of 

 a leaf of the same tree (see fig. I, a, a, a) : not far from each 

 of these larvae was a little pocket, formed of the skin of the 

 leaf (fig. I, b, b, b), of a very pale green, and having a little 

 hole bitten out of the middle ; in these pockets the eggs had 

 been placed, from which the larvae had emerged. Ratzeburg 

 has made precisely the same observation, as appears in his 

 work, referred to at the head of this paper. The larvae 

 gnawed little pieces out of the under epidermis and 

 parenchyma of the leaf, as represented at fig. 2, magnified, 

 so that the leaf on which they lived was speedily covered 

 above and below with little brown spots, where the cuticle 

 only was left. Afterwards, when many larvae have damaged 

 the leaf in this way, it dies and curls up, which has induced 

 Ratzeburg to class Selandria annulipes as specially injurious 

 in gardens. 



My young larvae were very shining, as if they had been 

 covered with varnish : they were of a very pale gray, with 

 nut-brown heads; the anterior segments of the body were 

 broad, narrowing posteriorly ; the broad intestinal canal, 

 which was of a green colour, showed through the body, and 

 had a black longitudinal line at the end, which was simply 

 the excrement seen through the skin. I counted twenty-two 



